Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It can transport us to a different time and place, evoking memories of people, places, and things that we may have long forgotten. Listening to music from our youth or re-watching classic movies, nostalgia has the power to bring us comfort and joy, while also reminding us of the passage of time.
I am rediscovering Don Bluth movies — there is something about his animation style that inspires longing in my inner child. "A Troll in Central Park" was one of his lesser-known movies, a bomb at the box office. 23,000,000 to make, with a box office of 71,000, not even 1 percent of its budget. It seems like the movie was released with the foreboding of failure.
The movie is not trash...at all. It's a delightful movie voiced by the charming Dom DeLuise. The film delights with long, surreal animation scenes that will make your heart flutter, just as Stanley the Troll flutters when kissed by a young child. What is one person's 30-year-old forgotten discarded animation (errr, trash) is my 2024 treasure. And it makes me wonder just how many gems there are left to discover.
Perhaps there is something about discards that invites my imagination. As a young teenager living in Miami, I remember going to thrift stores with my dad and finding troves of wonderful paperback books for a dollar or less. Treasure. How many forgotten things are out there for me to enjoy?
Is it strange that as an adult, I long for the simplicity of being a cultural dumpster diver? To look in used bookstores and thrift shops for worn paperbacks...to search Youtube to see what old movies might be there...
I was cleaning out some old stuff at work when I found old copies of the London Times Book Review, a favorite of one of my former colleagues. They are artifacts from another time — early 2020s to be specific. In these old-style folded newspaper-type periodicals, I find essays about the pandemic, conspiracy theories, and reviews of books on Egyptology. Mostly, though, I feel the anxiety of the pandemic in the texture of the paper. Strange that pandemic anxiety already feels like a throwback, even though it's still everywhere.
Between scenes of "A Troll in Central Park," I read paragraphs from these old newspaper-type book review journals. I delight in my life of discarded cultural treasures.
The discarded, the miscellaneous. Perhaps my gift is seeing value where others see discardables. To look at the London Times Book Review, to watch "A Troll in Central Park," you must look beyond the "nowness" of popular culture to the craftsmanship that goes into things.
Will I ever have the talent to write one minor / soon-to-be-forgotten Don Bluth animated movie? Will I ever be able to place an essay in the London Times Book Review?
If that talent is beyond me, then perhaps I can at least have the wisdom to appreciate these cultural (discarded before their time) treasures.
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Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)
General FictionWhat is the connection between artistic expression and the joy of living? How can one best live a literary life? This book is a collection of small word-projects. Each examines a book, a moment, a story that helps to deepen the author's literary adv...
